MeshGearFox- what made Phantasy Star 3's gameplay clunky for me was the pooled experience (meaning if you get 45 EXP after defeating an enemy, that means 9 EXP for each of your 5 party members) and enemies dropping paltry amounts of money too, making the game more tedious than it should have been. Snail's pace walking speed didn't help either. I didn't like having to pay to save either.

Gameplay is more than just a battle engine. The battles itself weren't that bad. It was everything else in the gameplay that made the experience more maddening than it should have been.

Fan-freaking-tastic story however; though it could have been really ace were the writing smoother.

That was actually my interpretation of Final Fantasy 8. Even though there might have been magic and fantasy elements, socially and politically, everything was pretty "contemporary" feeling. The day-to-day technology (I'm not talking about the upper eschellon space-ships, flying "cities" and hover platforms) was pretty much normal. The language, political structure, social interactions, so-on-and-so-forth were pretty contemporary. Instead of kings and warlords we had presidents and dictators, political factions and activist movements. Elevators, televisions, automobiles and motorcycles. I guess that's why I was able to connect with the game so much. It allowed for fantastical events, but communicated with the audience on a down-to-earth, contemporary social standpoint

FF9 is an interesting hybrid of sorts, the setting and politics being high fantasy and European renniassance, yet the social interaction and day-to-day lifestyle were fairly contemporary. FF7 may have been contemporary as well, but its bleak, cyber-punk setting and negatively driven social interactions sorta killed my ability to connect with the surrounding.

Anyway, I'd really like to see more contemporary-feeling RPGs. Many modern RPGs are starting to reflect what FF9 started: high rennaissance fantasy with contemporary interaction. That's nice and all, but we've seen high fantasy now for years. I'd like to see more games with a contemporary setting... that are actually good.

FFVIII probably has the most fleshed out "contemporary" world that I have ever seen in a video game. It was done with a meticulous nature similar to a director taking a Shakespeare play and reworking it for a different time period; things like kings and sorcerers were altered in the new context, still maintaining a magic, but a different type altogether. I'd also like to see more contemporary RPG's, or even those that take place in the 1900's. Different types of settings and time periods should be played around with. I hate the medieval setting with contemporary speech. It feels fake. You can't be fake to a gamer or an audience.

That's one thing I loved about Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army; the writing and dialogue fit the period (1920s- 1930s.) Granted, the game took place in Japan, but for the English dialogue using terms like "dame" or "bird" to refer to a female made it feel like period dialogue. Sure some of the demons used modern/contemporary dialogue, but that didn't bother me.

It had an immersive setting... too bad the battle system was clunky.

FF8 had an interesting setting. I quite liked the game's world. Too bad most of the events surrounding the dramatis personae were either silly, boring, or had more holes than Swiss cheese.

FFVIII probably has the most fleshed out "contemporary" world that I have ever seen in a video game. It was done with a meticulous nature similar to a director taking a Shakespeare play and reworking it for a different time period; things like kings and sorcerers were altered in the new context, still maintaining a magic, but a different type altogether. I'd also like to see more contemporary RPG's, or even those that take place in the 1900's. Different types of settings and time periods should be played around with. I hate the medieval setting with contemporary speech. It feels fake. You can't be fake to a gamer or an audience.

Well said. I usually don't like the medieval settings with contemporary speech either... but I think that FFIX did pull it off to a great extent. I really got the feeling that a lot of thought was put into every word in that game. I especially liked all the Shakespearian references (the Mucha Ado section was PRICELESS, and the setup was superb). I don't mind it if a lot of thought was put into it.

What I don't like is medieval settings that contain contemporary speech specifically because the creators feel it will more easilly appeal to a contemporary audience. That's simply a form of dumbing down your audience, IMO. I think quite a few RPGs suffer from this. Honestly, though, I'm with you, I'm sick of medieval fantasy RPGs... and I'm sick of strict sci-fi RPGs too. Do we really need fantasy elements in RPGs to make them worthwhile, anyway? I don't mind a little magic here and there, but I'm not convinced its neccessary.

I really think the draw of the jRPG is in its value system... actually. It's very "romantic", in the mid-1800s sense of the word. I think our generation, and specifically our psychographic, is yearning for some sort of neo-romantic movement that we're not really getting from the world around us. My dream is to see some sort of neo-romantic renniassance sometime in my lifetime.

I was just thinking about this the other day. Many of the characters in a lot of my favorite games are soldiers. But to be honest, when I meet soldier in real life, they sorta turn me off... as if the romantic ideal of a soldier is very different from the realistic one. I think that comes from the fact that most soldiers, today, and throughout history, have ambitions that are less than romantic.

I'll stop now before I sound like I'm going anti-military on everyone here.

With the exception of FFVII, I don’t think there’s a single Final Fantasy that has as many plot holes or silly plot twists as FFVIII.

I don't think anyone's gonna dissagree with you. It's just that the characterization and dialog far-and-away, made up for it. In fact, i'd go as far as to say that FF8 possibly tops FF7 in plot holes... although the non-holey plot sections are much more solid.

I’m sure there’s someone out there with a list of all the plot flaws in FFVII and FFVIII. I think a lot of FFVII’s problems come from some of the rough translation.

My problem with FF7 is that it suffers from "Star Trek: Generations" syndrom... that being that a lot of the plot revolves more around the mechanics of the Fantasy world, than on the characters themselves. Even when it does focus on the characters, most of their psychological dillemas are supernatural in nature, and in ways thare are difficult to draw allegories to in day-to-day life.

FF8 may not have the most likable characters in the world, but at least its able to overcome the "wizz-bang!" focus on fantasy that its predicessor continually fell back on. I, personally, really like flawed characters, as it gives them room to grow. Probably my favorite character, to date, is Luke from Tales of the Abyss... who I absolutely dispised in the beginning of the game.

The one thing I do fail to grasp is this idea of Squall as the emo-kid. If anything, he's sort of the anti-emo kid... refusing to display any emotion to anyone. I think people sometimes jump on the band wagon of whatever is the least-popular, at the moment, if they don't have a very logical explanation of why they don't like a character. The fact is, Squall doesn't really fall into a very distinct social catagory, or character archetype, which is a little unsettling to people. He's not angsty either (as some have suggeted), he may be quiet and standoffish, but he never broods about how his life sucks, in fact, if left to his own vollition, he's pretty content just going along with things as they are... so long as anyone else doesn't get in his way.

Ugh, emo is such an overused term, and I agree that the general definition of emo doesn’t apply to Squall. Really my problems with Squall are all to do with personal taste. He spends a large part of the game shying away from everyone else, refusing to share his thoughts and feelings with those around him, although as the player we get to see how the events affect him through the little inner monologues that he has.

He’s an overly negative fellow, socially awkward, and ever opinionated despite his “whatever” attitude. My problem with him stems from the simple fact that he is so depressingly negative at times. And yes, I understand why he has the loner persona, and I know that he starts to really take charge and becomes more confident around disk 3, but for the most part he's not the type of character I’d like to play as.

Logged

Earth-2.net is a website where I occasionally type words about entertaining pieces of media.

Emo doesn't even seem to have a pure definition from what I've seen. I've only seen the word used online(I've never head anyone in my offline life use it), and it's been used to describe what some people perceive as either heavily emotional, or a character who is quiet and somber. When it comes to the too emotional type is almost always applied to characters who display an actually surprisingly controlled(in context) emotional reaction to extreme circumstances, i.e having their whole family/friends murdered, living under some kind of oppression etc.

More often than naught, it seems emo is just a pejorative haphazardly thrown around when someone is too lazy to actually think and describe what it is they don't actually like about a certain character.

These and I suppose other reasons are why I generally ignore conversations online where this term is pervasive.